August 13, 2025 • 48 mins
https://www.solgoodmedia.com Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad-free! Step into a world of daily intrigue and timeless tales with our Classic Adventure Podcast Series! Each day, we bring to life a new chapter from a beloved classic, inviting you on an exhilarating journey through some of the greatest adventure stories ever written. Imagine unraveling the mysteries with Sherlock Holmes, exploring bizarre landscapes with Alice, or circumnavigating the globe in just eighty days. Why settle for mundane daily commutes or routine chores when you can escape into the thrilling escapades of "Treasure Island" or the eerie encounters in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"? Our podcast transforms your every day into a captivating adventure, perfect for both the literary enthusiast and the casual listener seeking an escape from the ordinary. Join us as we traverse the dark depths of "Heart of Darkness," soar through the imaginative realms of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," and survive the wilds with "Robinson Crusoe." Each episode is crafted to make the classics accessible and exciting, ensuring that whether you're reliving your favorite tales or discovering them for the first time, you're guaranteed a gripping experience. Subscribe to our Classic Adventure Podcast Series today and start your daily adventure! Let us awaken the explorer in you as we delve into these timeless narratives, chapter by chapter, transforming your daily routine into an extraordinary journey through the pages of history's most thrilling adventures. Don't just listen to stories—live them every day with us!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine a boat. But first I was to prepare
more land, for I had now seen enough to sow
above an acre of ground. Before I did this, I
had a week's work at least to make me a spade,
which when it was done, was but a sorry one, indeed,
(00:20):
and very heavy, and required double labor to work with it. However,
I got through that and sowed my seed in two
large flat pieces of ground as near my house as
I could find them to mind, and fenced them in
with a good hedge, the stakes of which were all
cut off that wood which I have set before and
(00:44):
knew it would grow, so that in a year's time
I knew I should have a quick or living hedge
that would want but little repair. This work did not
take me up less than through months, because a great
part of that time was the wet season, when I
could not go abroad within doors, that is, when it
(01:09):
rained and I could not go out. I found employment
in the following occupations, always observing that all the while
I was at work, I diverted myself with talking to
my parrot and teaching him to speak. And I quickly
taught him to know his own first name, and at
last to speak it out pretty loud, pall, which was
(01:31):
the first word I ever heard spoken in the island
by any mouth but my own. This therefore was not
my work, but an assistance to my work. For now,
as I said, I had a great employment upon my hands.
As follows, I had long studied to make, by some
means or other, some earthen vessels, which indeed I wanted sorely,
(01:57):
but knew not where to come at them. However, considering
the heat of the climate, I did not doubt, but
if I could find out any clay, I might make
some pots that might, being dried in the sun, be
hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to
hold anything that was dry and required to be kept so,
(02:19):
And as this was necessary in the preparing of corn meal,
et cetera, which was the thing I was doing, I
resolved to make some as large as I could, and
fit only to stand like jars to hold what should
be put into them. It would make the reader pity me,
or rather laugh at me, to tell how many awkward
(02:41):
ways I took to raise this paste, what odd, misshapen
ugly things I made, how many of them fell in,
and how many fell out? The clay not being stiff
enough to bear its own weight. How many cracked by
the over violent heat of the sun, being set out
too hastily, and how many fell in pieces, with only
(03:04):
removing as well before as after they were dried. And
in a word, how after having labored hard to find
the clay, to dig it, to temper it, to bring
it home and work it, I could not make above
two large earthen, ugly things I cannot call them jars
(03:26):
in about two months labor. However, as the sun baked
these two very hard and dry, I lifted them very
gently up and set them down again in two great
wicker baskets, which I had made on purpose for them,
that they might not break. And as between the pot
(03:49):
and the basket there was a little room to spare,
I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw.
And these two pots, being to stand always dry, I
thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps my meal
when the corn was bruised. Though I miscarried so much
in my design for large pots, yet I made several
(04:11):
smaller things with better success, such as little round pots,
flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and any things my hand
turned to and the heat of the sun baked them
quite hard. But all this would not answer my end,
which was to get an earthen pot to hold what
(04:32):
was liquid and bare the fire, which none of these
could do. It happened after some time, making a pretty
large fire for cooking my meat. When I went to
put it out after I was done with it, I
found a broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels
in the fire, burnt as hard as a stone and
(04:52):
red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it,
and said to myself that certainly they might be made
to burn whole if they would burn broken. This set
me to study how to order my fire so as
to make it burn some pots. I had no notion
of a kiln such as the potters burn in, or
(05:15):
of glazing them with lead, though I had some lead
to do it with. But I placed three large pipkins
and two or three pots in a pile, one upon another,
and placed my firewood all around it, with a great
heap of embers under them. I plied the fire with
fresh fuel round the outside and upon the top, till
(05:36):
I saw the pots in the inside red hot quite through,
and observed that they did not crack at all, but
I saw them clear red. I let them stand in
that heat about five or six hours till I found
one of them, though it did not crack, did melt
or run for the sand, which was mixed with the clay,
(05:57):
melted by the violence of the heat, and would have
run into glass if I had gone on. So I
slacked my fire gradually till the pots began to abate
of the red color, and watching them all night that
I might not let the fire abate too fast. In
the morning I had three very good, I will not
(06:18):
say handsome pipkins, and two other earthen pots, as hard
burnt as could be desired, and one of them perfectly
blazed with the running of the sand. After this experiment,
I need not say that I wanted no sort of
earthenware for my use, but I must need say as
(06:39):
to the shapes of them, they were very indifferent, and
as anyone may suppose when I had no way of
making them, But as the children make dirt pies, or
as a woman who would make pies that never learned
to raise paste, no joy at a thing of so
(07:02):
min a nature was ever equal to mine. When I
found I had made an earthen pot that would bear
the fire, and I had hardly patience to stay till
they were cold before I set one on the fire
again with some water in it to boil me some meat,
which it did admirably well, and with a kind of
(07:23):
piece of a kid I made some very good broth,
though I wanted oatmeal and several other ingredients requisite to
make it as good as I would have had it been.
My next concern was to get me a stone mortar
to stamp or beat some corn in. For as to
(07:44):
the mill, there was no thought of arriving at that
perfection of art with one pair of hands to supply
this want. I was at a great loss. For of
all the trades in the world, I was as perfectly
unqualified for a stone cutter as for any whatever, neither
had I any tools to go about it with. I
(08:07):
spent many a day to find a great stone big
enough to cut hollow and make fit for a mortar,
and could find none at all except what was in
the solid rock, and which I had no way to
dig or cut out. Nor indeed were the rocks in
the island of Hardness sufficient, but were all of a
(08:28):
sandy crumbling stone, which neither could bear the weight of
a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without filling
it with sand. So, after a great deal of time
lost in searching for a stone, I gave it over
and resolved to look out for a great block of
hard wood, which I found indeed much easier, and getting
(08:51):
one as big as I had strength to stir, I
rounded it and formed it on the outside with my
axe and hatchet, and then, with the help of fire
and infinite labor, made a hollow place in it, as
the Indians in Brazil make their canoes. After this I
made a great heavy pestle or beater of the wood
(09:14):
called the ironwood, and this I prepared and laid by
against I had my next crop of corn, which I
proposed to myself grind, or rather pound into meal to
make bread. My next difficulty was to make a sieve
or seerce to dress my meal, and to part it
(09:36):
from the brand and the husk, without which I did
not see it possible I could have any bread. This
was a most difficult thing even to look upon, for
to be sure, I had nothing like the necessary thing
to make it, I mean, fine thin canvas or stuff
to seerse the meal through. And here I was at
(09:57):
a full stop for many months. Nor did I really
know what to do, Lenin I had none left but
what was mere rags. I had goat's hair, but neither
knew how to weave or to spin it, and had
I known how, here were no tools to work it with.
(10:17):
All the remedy that I found was this that at
last I did remember. I had among the seamen's clothes,
which were saved out of the ship, some neckcloths of
calico or muslin, And with some pieces of these I
made three small sieves proper enough for the work. And
thus I made shift for some years. How I did
(10:40):
afterwards I shall show in its place. The baking part
was the next thing to be considered, and how I
should make bread. When I came to have corn, for first,
I had no yeast. As to that part, there was
no supplying the want. So I did not concern myself
(11:02):
much about it. But for an oven I was indeed
in great pain. At length I found out an experiment
for that also, which was this. I made some earthen vessels,
very broad but not deep, that is to say, about
two feet diameter, and not above nine inches deep. These
I burned in the fire as I had done the other,
(11:24):
and laid them by. And when I wanted to bake,
I made a great fire upon my hearth, which I
had paved with some square tiles of my own, baking
and burning also, but I should not call them square.
When the firewood was burned pretty much into enbers or
(11:47):
live coals, I drew them forward upon this hearth so
as to cover it all over. And there I let
them lie till the hearth was very hot. Then, sweeping
away all the embers, I set down my low or loaves,
and whelming down the earthen pot upon them, drew the
embers all round the outside of the pot to keep
(12:10):
in and add to the heat. And thus, as well
as in the best oven in the world, I baked
my barley loaves, and became in a little time a
good pastry cook into the bargain. For I made myself
several cakes and puddings of the rice. But I had
(12:30):
no pies, neither had I anything to put them in.
Supposing I had except the flesh, either of fowls or goats,
it need not be wondered, as if all these things
took up most of my time of third year of
my abode here. For it is to be observed that
(12:51):
in the interval of these things I had my new
harvest and husbandry to manage. For I reaped my corn
in its season, and carried it home as well as
I could, and laid it up in the ear in
my large baskets till I had time to rub it out,
for I had no floor to thrash it upon, or
(13:13):
instrument to thrash it with. And now indeed my stock
of corn increasing, I really wanted to build my barns bigger.
I wanted a place to lay it up in. For
the increase of the corn now yielded me so much
that I had of the barley about twenty bushels, and
(13:34):
of the rice as much or more, insomuch that now
I resolved to begin to use it freely, for my
bread had been quite gone a great while. Also, I
resolved to see what quantity would be sufficient for me
a whole year, and to sew but once a year.
Upon the whole I found that the forty bushels of
(13:57):
barley and rice were much more than I could could
consume in a year. So I resolved to sow just
the same quantity every year that I sowed the last,
in hopes that such a quantity would fully provide me
with bread, etc. All the while these things were doing,
you may be sure, my thoughts ran many times upon
(14:18):
the prospect of land, which I had seen from the
other side of the island. And I was not without
secret wishes that I were on shore there, fancying that
seeing the mainland and an inhabited country, I might find
some way or other to convey myself further, and perhaps
(14:38):
at last find some means of escape. But all this
while I made no allowance for the dangers of such
an undertaking, and how I might fall into the hands
of savages, and perhaps such as I might have reason
to think far worse than the lions and tigers of Africa,
that if I once came in their power, I should
(15:01):
run a hazard of more than one thousand to one
of being killed, and perhaps of being eaten. For I
had heard that the people of the Caribbean coast were
cannibals or man eaters, and I knew by the latitude
that I could not be far from that shore. Then,
supposing they were not cannibals, yet they might kill me
(15:23):
as many Europeans who had fallen into their hands had
been served, even when they had been ten or twenty together.
Much more. I that was but one, and couldn't make
little or no defense. All these things I say, which
I ought to have considered well, and did come into
my thoughts afterwards, yet gave me no apprehensions at first,
(15:47):
and my head ran mightily upon the thought of getting
over to the shore. Now I wish for my boy Shuri,
and the longboat with the shoulder of mutton sail, with
which I had sailed above a thousand miles on the
coast of Africa. But this was in vain. Then I
(16:08):
thought I would go and look at our ship's boat, which,
as I have said, was blown up upon the shore
a great way in the storm when we first cast away.
She lay almost where she did at first, but not quite,
and was turned by the force of the waves and
the winds, almost bottom upward against a high ridge of
(16:29):
beechy rough sand, but no water about her. If I
had had hands to have refitted her, and to have
launched her into the water, the boat would have done
well enough. But and I might have gone back into
the Brazils with her easily enough. Yet I might have
(16:50):
foreseen that I could no more turn her and set
her upright upon her bottom than I could remove the island. However,
I went to the woods and cut levers and rollers,
and brought them to the boat, resolving to try what
I could do, suggesting to myself that if I could
turn her down, I might repair the damage she had received,
(17:16):
and she would be a very good boat, and I
might go to see in her very easily. I spared
no pains, indeed in this bit of fruitless toil, and
spent I think three or four weeks about it. At last,
finding it impossible to heave it up with my little strength,
I fell to digging away the sand to undermine it,
(17:38):
and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of
wood to thrust and guide it right in the fall.
But when I had done this, I was unable to
stir it up again, or to get under it, much
less to move it forwards towards the water. So I
was forced to give it over. And yet though I
(17:59):
gave the hopes of the boat, my desire to venture
over for the main increased, rather than decreased, as the
means for it seemed impossible. This at length put me,
upon thinking whether it was not possible to make myself
a canoe or periagua, such as the natives of those
(18:21):
climates make, even without tools, or as I might say,
without hands, of the trunk of a great tree. This
I not only thought possible, but easy, and pleased myself
extremely with the thoughts of making it, and with my
having much more convenience for it than any of the
(18:41):
Negroes or Indians. But not at all considering the particular
inconveniences which I lay under more than the Indians, and
that is, want of hands to move it when it
was made into the water, a difficulty much harder for
me to surmount than all the consequences of want of
(19:02):
tools could be to them. For what was it to
me if, when I had chosen a vast tree in
the woods, and with much trouble cut it down, if
I had been able with my tools to hew and
dub the outside with the proper shape of a boat,
and burn or cut out the inside to make it hollow,
(19:22):
so as to make a boat of it. If after
all this I must leave it just where I had
found it, and not be able to launch it into
the water, one would have thought I could not have
had the least reflection upon my mind of the circumstances
while I was making this boat. But I should have
(19:43):
immediately thought how I should get it into the sea.
But my thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over
the sea in it that I never once considered how
I should get it off the land. And it was really,
in its own nature more easy for me to guide
it over forty five miles of sea about forty five
(20:03):
fathoms of land where it lay, to set it afloat
in the water. I went to work upon this boat
the most like a fool that ever man did who
had any of the senses awake. I pleased myself with
the design, and without determining whether I was ever able
to undertake it not, but that the difficulty of launching
(20:27):
my boat came often into my head. But I put
a stop to my inquiries into this by this foolish
answer which I gave myself. Let me first make it.
I warrant I will find some way or other to
get it along when it is done. This was a
most preposterous method, but the eagerness of my fancy prevailed,
(20:52):
and to work I went. I found a cedar tree,
and I questioned much whether Solomon ever had such a
one for the building of the Temple of Jerusalem. It
was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part
next the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at
the end of twenty two feet, after which it lessened
(21:15):
for a while and then parted into branches. It was
not without infinite labor that I felled the stream. I
was twenty days hacking and hewing at it. At the
bottom I was fourteen more getting the branches and limbs,
and the vast spreading head cut off, which I hacked
and hued through with axe and hatchet and inexpressible labor.
(21:41):
After this it cost me a month to shape it
and dub it to a proportion and to something like
the bottom of a boat, that it might swim upright
as it ought to. It cost me near three months
more to clear the inside and work it out so
as to make it an exact boat. This I did,
(22:04):
indeed without fire, by mere mallet and chisel, and by
the dint of hard labor, till I had brought it
to be a very handsome periagua, and big enough to
have carried six and twenty men, and consequently big enough
to have carried me and all my cargo. When I
(22:26):
had gone through this work, I was extremely delighted with it.
The boat was really much bigger than ever I saw
a canoe or periagua that was made of one tree
in my life many a weary stroke. It had cost,
you can be sure. And had I gotten it into
the water, I make no question, but I should have
(22:48):
begun the maddest voyage and the most unlikely to be
performed that ever was undertaken. But all my devices to
get it into the water failed me, though they cost
me infinite labor. Two It lay about one hundred yards
from the water, and not more. But the first inconvenience
(23:11):
was it was uphill towards the creek. Well. To take
away this discouragement, I resolved to dig into the surface
of the earth and so make a declivity. This I began,
and it cost me a prodigious deal of pains. But
who grudge pains who have their deliverance in view. But
(23:34):
when this was worked through and this difficulty managed, it
was still much the same. For I could no more
stir the canoe than I could the other boat. Then
I ventured the distance of ground, and resolved to cut
a dock or canal to bring the water up to
the canoe. Seeing I could not bring the canoe down
(23:57):
to the water well, I began this work. And when
I had begun to enter upon it and calculate how
deep it was to be dug, how broad how the
stuff was to be thrown out, I found that by
the number of hands I had been none but my own.
It must have been ten or twelve years before I
(24:19):
could have gone through with it, for the shore lay
so high that at the upper end it must have
been at least twenty feet deep, and so at length.
But with great reluctancy I gave this attempt over. Also
(24:39):
this grieved me heartily, and now I saw, though too late,
the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost,
and before we judge rightly of our own strength to
go through with it. In the middle of this work
I finished my fourth year in this place, and kept
my anniversary with this same devotion and with as much
(25:01):
comfort as ever before. For by a constant study and
serious application of the Word of God, and by the
assistance of His grace, I gained a different knowledge from
what I had before, I entertained different notions of things.
(25:22):
I looked now upon the world as a thing remote
which I had nothing to do with, no expectations from,
and indeed no desires about. In a word, I had
nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever likely
(25:42):
to have. So I thought it looked as we may
perhaps look upon it hereafter, that is, as a place
I had lived in, but was come out of it.
And well might I say, as Father Abraham to dives
between me and the is a great gulf fixed in
(26:08):
the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness
of the world. Here I had neither the lusts of
the flesh and the lusts of the eye, nor the
pride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I
had all that I was now capable of enjoying. I
was lord of the whole manner, or if it pleased,
(26:29):
I might call myself king or emperor over the whole
country which I had possession of. There were no rivals.
I had no competitor, none to dispute sovereignty or command me.
I might have raised shiploadings of corn, but I had
(26:50):
no use for it. So I let as little grow
as I thought enough for my occasion. I had tortoise
or turtle enough, But now and then one was as
much as I could put to any use. I had
timber enough to have built a fleet of ships, and
(27:11):
I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to
have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when
it had been built. But all I could make use
of was all that was valuable. I had enough to
eat and supply my wants. And what was all the
(27:32):
rest to me? If I killed more flesh than I
could eat, the dog must eat it, or vermin. If
I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must
be spoiled. The trees that I cut down were lying
to rot on the ground. I could make no more
use of them but for fuel, and that I had
(27:54):
no occasion for but to dress my food. In a word,
the nature and experience of things dictated to me upon
just reflection that all the good things of this world
are no farther good to us than they are for
(28:14):
our use, and that whatever we may heap up to
give others, we enjoyed just as much as we can
use and know more. The most covetous gripping miser in
the world would have been cured of the vice of
covetousness if he had been in my case. For I
(28:39):
possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with.
I had no room for desire, except it was of
things which I had not, and they were but trifles,
though indeed of great use to me. I had, as
I hinted before, a parcel of money, as well gold
(28:59):
as silver, about thirty six pounds sterling. Alas there the
sorry useless stuff lay, I had no more manner of
business for it, and often though with myself that I
would have given a handful of it for a gross
of tobacco pipes, or for a hand mill to grind
(29:21):
my corn. Nay, I would have given it all for
a sixpenny worth of turnip and carrot seed out of England,
or for a handful of peas and beans and a
bottle of ink. As it was, I had not the
least advantage by it or benefit from it. But there
(29:44):
it lay in a drawer and grew moldy with the
damp of the cave in the wet seasons. And if
I had had the drawer full of diamonds, it had
been the same case they had been of no manner
of value to me because of no use. Use I
had now brought my state of life to be much
(30:06):
easier in itself than it was at first, and much
easier to my mind as well as to my body.
I frequently sat down to meet with thankfulness and admired
the hands of God's providence which had thus spread my
table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon
(30:28):
the bright side of my condition and less upon the
dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than
what I wanted. And this gave me sometimes such secret
comforts that I cannot express them, and which I take
notice of here to put these discontented people in my
(30:51):
mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has
given them because they see and covet something that He
has not given them. All our discontents about what we
want appeared to me to spring from the want of
thankfulness for what we have. Another reflection was of great
(31:17):
use to me, and doubtless would be so to anyone
that would fall into such distress as mine was. And
this was to compare my present condition with what I
at first expected it would be, nay, with what it
would certainly have been if the good providence of God
had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be cast up
(31:38):
nearer to the shore, where I not only could come
at her, but could bring what I got out of
her to the shore for my relief and comfort, without
which I had wanted, for tools to work, weapons for defense,
and gunpowder and shot for getting my food. I spent
(32:00):
whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to
myself in the most lively colors, how I would have
acted if I had got nothing out of the ship,
How I could not have so much as got any
food except fish and turtles, And that, as it was
(32:22):
long before I found any of them, I must have
perished first. That I should have lived if I had
not perished like a mere savage. That if I had
killed a goat or a fowl by any contrivance, I
had no way to flay or open it, or part
(32:44):
the flesh from the skin and the bowels, or to
cut it up, but must gnaw it with my teeth
and pull it with my claws like a beast. These
reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence
to me, and very thankful of my present condition, with
(33:08):
all its hardships and misfortunes. And this part also I
cannot but recommend to the reflection of those who are
apt in their misery to say, is any affliction like mine?
Let them consider how much worse the cases of some
people are, and their case might have been, if Providence
(33:31):
had thought fit. I had another reflection which assisted me
also to comfort my mind with hopes, and this was
comparing my present situation with what I had deserved and
had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Providence.
I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the
(33:55):
knowledge and fear of God. I had been well instructed
by Father and Mother. Neither had they been wanting to
me in their early endeavors, to infuse a religious awe
of God into my mind, a sense of my duty
in what the nature and end of my being required
of me. But alas falling early into the seafaring life,
(34:20):
which of all lives, is the most destitute of the
fear of God, though his terrors are always before them,
I say, falling early into the seafaring life and into
seafaring company, all that little sense of religion which I
had entertained, was laughed out of me by my messmates,
(34:42):
by a hardened despising of dangers and the views of death,
which grew habitual to me by my long absence from
all manner of opportunities to converse with anything but was
like myself, or to hear anything that was good or
tended towards it. So void was I of everything that
(35:07):
was good or the least sense of what I was
or was to be, that in the greatest deliverances I enjoyed,
such as my escape from Selie, my being taken up
by the Portuguese master of the ship, my being planted
so well in the Brazils, my receiving the cargo from England,
(35:30):
and the like. I never had once the words thank
God so much as on my mind or in my mouth,
nor in the greatest distress, had I so much as
a thought to pray to Him, or so much as
to say, Lord, have mercy upon me, nor to mention
(35:55):
the name of God. No, unless it was to swear
by and blasphem it. I had terrible reflections upon my
mind for many months, as I have already observed, on
account of my wicked and hardened life past, and when
(36:15):
I looked about me and considered what particular providences had
attended me since my coming into this place, and how
God had dealt bountifully with me, had not only punished
me less than my iniquity had deserved, but had so
plentifully provided for me. This gave me great hopes that
(36:39):
my repentance was accepted and that God had yet mercy
in store for me. With these reflections, I worked my
mind up not only to a resignation to the will
of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but
even to a sincere thankfulness for my condition, and that I,
(37:04):
who was yet a living man, ought not to complain,
seeing I had not the due punishment of my sins,
that I enjoyed so many mercies which I had no
reason to have expected in that place, that I ought
never more to repine at my condition, but to rejoice
(37:27):
and to give daily thanks for that daily bread which
nothing but a crowd of wonders could have brought. That
I ought to consider I had been fed even by
a miracle even as great as that of feeding Elijah
by Ravens, nay, by a long series of miracles that
(37:50):
I could hardly have named a place in the uninhabitable
part of the world, where I could have been cast
more to my advantage, A place where as I had
no society, which must was my affliction. On one hand,
so I found no ravenous beasts, no furious wolves or
(38:13):
tigers to threaten my life, no venomous creatures or poisons
which I might feed on to my hurt, no savages
to murder and devour me. In a word, as my
life was a life of sorrow one way, so it
was a life of mercy another, And I wanted nothing
(38:38):
to make it a life of comfort, but to be
able to make my sense of God's goodness to me
and care over me in this condition be my daily consolation.
And after I did make a just improvement of these things,
I went away and was no more sad. I had
(39:03):
now been here so long that many things which I
had brought on shore for my help were either quite
gone or very much wasted and near spent. My ink,
as I observed, had been gone sometime, all but a
very little, which I eat out with water, a little
(39:23):
and a little, till it was so pale it scarce
left any appearance of black upon the paper. As long
as it lasted, I made use of it to minute
down the days of the month on which any remarkable
thing happened to me. And first, by casting up times past,
(39:45):
I remembered that there was a strange concurrence of days
in the various providences which befell me, and which if
I had been superstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal
or fortunate, I might have had reason to have looked
upon with a great deal of curiosity. First I had
(40:08):
observed that the same day that I broke away from
my father and friends and ran away to Hull in
order to go to sea, the same day afterwards I
was taken by the Sali man of war and made
a slave. And the same day of the year that
I escaped out of the wreck of that ship in
(40:28):
Yarmouth Roads. That same day year afterwards, I made my
escape from Slie in a boat. The same day of
the year I was born in that is the thirtieth
of September. That same day I had my life so
miraculously save twenty six years later, when I was cast
(40:52):
on shore in this island, so that my wicked life
and my solitary life began both on a day. The
next thing to my ink being wasted was that of
my bread, I mean the biscuit which I brought out
of the ship. This I had husbanded to the last degree,
(41:14):
allowing myself but one cake of bread a day for
above a year. And yet I was quite without bread
for near a year before I got any corn of
my own, and great reason I had to be thankful
that I had any at all the getting Yet, being
as has been already observed, next too miraculous, my clothes
(41:39):
too began to decay. As to linen, I had found
none a good while, except some checkered shirts, which I
found in the chests of the other seamen, and which
I carefully preserved, because many times I could bear no
other clothes on but a shirt. And it was a
(42:00):
very great help to me that I had, among all
the men's clothes of the ship, almost three dozen of shirts.
There were also, indeed several thick watchcoats of the semens
which were left, but they were too hot to wear.
And though it was true that the weather was so
(42:21):
violently hot that there was no need of clothes, yet
I could not go quite naked. No, though I had
been inclined to it, which I was not, nor could
I abide the thought of it though I was alone.
The reason why I could not go naked was I
could not bear the heat of the sun so well
(42:44):
when quite naked, as with some clothes on, Nay, the
very heat blistered my skin, whereas with a shirt on
the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the
shirt was too fold cooler than with it. No more
could I ever bring myself to go out in the
(43:04):
heat of the sun without a cap on my head
or a hat. The heat of the sun, beating with
such violence as it does in that place, would give
me the headache presently by darting so directly on my
head without a cap or hat on, so that I
could not bear it, whereas if I put on my
(43:26):
hat it would presently go away. Upon these views, I
began to consider about putting the few rags I had,
which I called clothes into some order. I had worn
out all the waistcoats I had, and my business was
now to try if I could make jackets out of
(43:49):
the great watchcoats which I had of me, but with
such other materials as I had. I set to working tailoring,
or rather indeed botching, for I made most piteous work
of it. However, I made shift to make two or
three new waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a
(44:13):
great while. As for breeches and drawers, I made but
a very sorry shift. Indeed, till afterwards I have mentioned
that I saved the skins of all the creatures that
I killed, I mean four footed ones, and I hung
them up, stretched out with sticks in the sun, by
(44:34):
which means some of them were so dry and so
hard that they were fit for little, but others were
very useful. The first thing I made of these was
a great cap for my head, with the hair on
the outside to shoot off the rain. And this I
performed so well that after I made me a suit
(44:55):
of clothes, wholly of these skins, that is to say,
a waistcoat and breeches opened up the knees and both loose,
for they were rather wanting to keep me cool than
to keep me warm. I must not admit to acknowledge
that they were wretchedly made, for if I was a
bad carpenter, I was a worse tailor. However, they were
(45:20):
such as I made very good shift with, and when
I was out, if it happened to rain the hair
of my waistcoat and cap, being outermost, I was kept
very dry. After this, I spent a great deal of
time and pains to make an umbrella. I was indeed
in great want of one, and had a great mind
(45:43):
to make one. I had seen them made in the Brazils,
where they are very useful in the great heats there,
and I felt the heats every jot is great here
and greater two being near the equinox. Besides, as I
was obliged to be much abroad, it was the most
useful thing to me, as well for the rains as
(46:04):
the heats. I took a world of pains with it,
and was a great while before I could make anything
likely to hold. Nay, after I had thought I had
hit my way, I spoiled two or three before I
made one to my mind. But at last I made
one that answered indifferently well. The main difficulty I found
(46:29):
was to make it let down. I can make it spread,
but if I did not let down two and draw
in it was not portable for me anyway, but just
over my head, which would not do. However, at last,
as I said, I made one to answer and covered
it with skins the hair upwards, so that it cast
(46:53):
off the rain like a penthouse, and kept off the
sun so effectually that I could walk how in the
hottest of the weather, with greater advantage than I could
before in the coolest, and when I had no need
of it, could close it and carry it under my arm.
(47:14):
Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed.
By resigning itself to the will of God, and throwing
myself wholly under the disposal of His providence. This made
my life better than sociable. For when I began to
regret the want of conversation, I would ask myself whether
(47:39):
thus conversing mutually with my own thoughts, and as I
hope I may say, with even God himself by ejaculations,
was not better than the most enjoyment of human society
in the world. End of Chapter nine.
Chapter nine a boat. But first I was to prepare
more land, for I had now seen enough to sow
above an acre of ground. Before I did this, I
had a week's work at least to make me a spade,
which when it was done, was but a sorry one, indeed,
(00:20):
and very heavy, and required double labor to work with it. However,
I got through that and sowed my seed in two
large flat pieces of ground as near my house as
I could find them to mind, and fenced them in
with a good hedge, the stakes of which were all
cut off that wood which I have set before and
(00:44):
knew it would grow, so that in a year's time
I knew I should have a quick or living hedge
that would want but little repair. This work did not
take me up less than through months, because a great
part of that time was the wet season, when I
could not go abroad within doors, that is, when it
(01:09):
rained and I could not go out. I found employment
in the following occupations, always observing that all the while
I was at work, I diverted myself with talking to
my parrot and teaching him to speak. And I quickly
taught him to know his own first name, and at
last to speak it out pretty loud, pall, which was
(01:31):
the first word I ever heard spoken in the island
by any mouth but my own. This therefore was not
my work, but an assistance to my work. For now,
as I said, I had a great employment upon my hands.
As follows, I had long studied to make, by some
means or other, some earthen vessels, which indeed I wanted sorely,
(01:57):
but knew not where to come at them. However, considering
the heat of the climate, I did not doubt, but
if I could find out any clay, I might make
some pots that might, being dried in the sun, be
hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to
hold anything that was dry and required to be kept so,
(02:19):
And as this was necessary in the preparing of corn meal,
et cetera, which was the thing I was doing, I
resolved to make some as large as I could, and
fit only to stand like jars to hold what should
be put into them. It would make the reader pity me,
or rather laugh at me, to tell how many awkward
(02:41):
ways I took to raise this paste, what odd, misshapen
ugly things I made, how many of them fell in,
and how many fell out? The clay not being stiff
enough to bear its own weight. How many cracked by
the over violent heat of the sun, being set out
too hastily, and how many fell in pieces, with only
(03:04):
removing as well before as after they were dried. And
in a word, how after having labored hard to find
the clay, to dig it, to temper it, to bring
it home and work it, I could not make above
two large earthen, ugly things I cannot call them jars
(03:26):
in about two months labor. However, as the sun baked
these two very hard and dry, I lifted them very
gently up and set them down again in two great
wicker baskets, which I had made on purpose for them,
that they might not break. And as between the pot
(03:49):
and the basket there was a little room to spare,
I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw.
And these two pots, being to stand always dry, I
thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps my meal
when the corn was bruised. Though I miscarried so much
in my design for large pots, yet I made several
(04:11):
smaller things with better success, such as little round pots,
flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and any things my hand
turned to and the heat of the sun baked them
quite hard. But all this would not answer my end,
which was to get an earthen pot to hold what
(04:32):
was liquid and bare the fire, which none of these
could do. It happened after some time, making a pretty
large fire for cooking my meat. When I went to
put it out after I was done with it, I
found a broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels
in the fire, burnt as hard as a stone and
(04:52):
red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it,
and said to myself that certainly they might be made
to burn whole if they would burn broken. This set
me to study how to order my fire so as
to make it burn some pots. I had no notion
of a kiln such as the potters burn in, or
(05:15):
of glazing them with lead, though I had some lead
to do it with. But I placed three large pipkins
and two or three pots in a pile, one upon another,
and placed my firewood all around it, with a great
heap of embers under them. I plied the fire with
fresh fuel round the outside and upon the top, till
(05:36):
I saw the pots in the inside red hot quite through,
and observed that they did not crack at all, but
I saw them clear red. I let them stand in
that heat about five or six hours till I found
one of them, though it did not crack, did melt
or run for the sand, which was mixed with the clay,
(05:57):
melted by the violence of the heat, and would have
run into glass if I had gone on. So I
slacked my fire gradually till the pots began to abate
of the red color, and watching them all night that
I might not let the fire abate too fast. In
the morning I had three very good, I will not
(06:18):
say handsome pipkins, and two other earthen pots, as hard
burnt as could be desired, and one of them perfectly
blazed with the running of the sand. After this experiment,
I need not say that I wanted no sort of
earthenware for my use, but I must need say as
(06:39):
to the shapes of them, they were very indifferent, and
as anyone may suppose when I had no way of
making them, But as the children make dirt pies, or
as a woman who would make pies that never learned
to raise paste, no joy at a thing of so
(07:02):
min a nature was ever equal to mine. When I
found I had made an earthen pot that would bear
the fire, and I had hardly patience to stay till
they were cold before I set one on the fire
again with some water in it to boil me some meat,
which it did admirably well, and with a kind of
(07:23):
piece of a kid I made some very good broth,
though I wanted oatmeal and several other ingredients requisite to
make it as good as I would have had it been.
My next concern was to get me a stone mortar
to stamp or beat some corn in. For as to
(07:44):
the mill, there was no thought of arriving at that
perfection of art with one pair of hands to supply
this want. I was at a great loss. For of
all the trades in the world, I was as perfectly
unqualified for a stone cutter as for any whatever, neither
had I any tools to go about it with. I
(08:07):
spent many a day to find a great stone big
enough to cut hollow and make fit for a mortar,
and could find none at all except what was in
the solid rock, and which I had no way to
dig or cut out. Nor indeed were the rocks in
the island of Hardness sufficient, but were all of a
(08:28):
sandy crumbling stone, which neither could bear the weight of
a heavy pestle, nor would break the corn without filling
it with sand. So, after a great deal of time
lost in searching for a stone, I gave it over
and resolved to look out for a great block of
hard wood, which I found indeed much easier, and getting
(08:51):
one as big as I had strength to stir, I
rounded it and formed it on the outside with my
axe and hatchet, and then, with the help of fire
and infinite labor, made a hollow place in it, as
the Indians in Brazil make their canoes. After this I
made a great heavy pestle or beater of the wood
(09:14):
called the ironwood, and this I prepared and laid by
against I had my next crop of corn, which I
proposed to myself grind, or rather pound into meal to
make bread. My next difficulty was to make a sieve
or seerce to dress my meal, and to part it
(09:36):
from the brand and the husk, without which I did
not see it possible I could have any bread. This
was a most difficult thing even to look upon, for
to be sure, I had nothing like the necessary thing
to make it, I mean, fine thin canvas or stuff
to seerse the meal through. And here I was at
(09:57):
a full stop for many months. Nor did I really
know what to do, Lenin I had none left but
what was mere rags. I had goat's hair, but neither
knew how to weave or to spin it, and had
I known how, here were no tools to work it with.
(10:17):
All the remedy that I found was this that at
last I did remember. I had among the seamen's clothes,
which were saved out of the ship, some neckcloths of
calico or muslin, And with some pieces of these I
made three small sieves proper enough for the work. And
thus I made shift for some years. How I did
(10:40):
afterwards I shall show in its place. The baking part
was the next thing to be considered, and how I
should make bread. When I came to have corn, for first,
I had no yeast. As to that part, there was
no supplying the want. So I did not concern myself
(11:02):
much about it. But for an oven I was indeed
in great pain. At length I found out an experiment
for that also, which was this. I made some earthen vessels,
very broad but not deep, that is to say, about
two feet diameter, and not above nine inches deep. These
I burned in the fire as I had done the other,
(11:24):
and laid them by. And when I wanted to bake,
I made a great fire upon my hearth, which I
had paved with some square tiles of my own, baking
and burning also, but I should not call them square.
When the firewood was burned pretty much into enbers or
(11:47):
live coals, I drew them forward upon this hearth so
as to cover it all over. And there I let
them lie till the hearth was very hot. Then, sweeping
away all the embers, I set down my low or loaves,
and whelming down the earthen pot upon them, drew the
embers all round the outside of the pot to keep
(12:10):
in and add to the heat. And thus, as well
as in the best oven in the world, I baked
my barley loaves, and became in a little time a
good pastry cook into the bargain. For I made myself
several cakes and puddings of the rice. But I had
(12:30):
no pies, neither had I anything to put them in.
Supposing I had except the flesh, either of fowls or goats,
it need not be wondered, as if all these things
took up most of my time of third year of
my abode here. For it is to be observed that
(12:51):
in the interval of these things I had my new
harvest and husbandry to manage. For I reaped my corn
in its season, and carried it home as well as
I could, and laid it up in the ear in
my large baskets till I had time to rub it out,
for I had no floor to thrash it upon, or
(13:13):
instrument to thrash it with. And now indeed my stock
of corn increasing, I really wanted to build my barns bigger.
I wanted a place to lay it up in. For
the increase of the corn now yielded me so much
that I had of the barley about twenty bushels, and
(13:34):
of the rice as much or more, insomuch that now
I resolved to begin to use it freely, for my
bread had been quite gone a great while. Also, I
resolved to see what quantity would be sufficient for me
a whole year, and to sew but once a year.
Upon the whole I found that the forty bushels of
(13:57):
barley and rice were much more than I could could
consume in a year. So I resolved to sow just
the same quantity every year that I sowed the last,
in hopes that such a quantity would fully provide me
with bread, etc. All the while these things were doing,
you may be sure, my thoughts ran many times upon
(14:18):
the prospect of land, which I had seen from the
other side of the island. And I was not without
secret wishes that I were on shore there, fancying that
seeing the mainland and an inhabited country, I might find
some way or other to convey myself further, and perhaps
(14:38):
at last find some means of escape. But all this
while I made no allowance for the dangers of such
an undertaking, and how I might fall into the hands
of savages, and perhaps such as I might have reason
to think far worse than the lions and tigers of Africa,
that if I once came in their power, I should
(15:01):
run a hazard of more than one thousand to one
of being killed, and perhaps of being eaten. For I
had heard that the people of the Caribbean coast were
cannibals or man eaters, and I knew by the latitude
that I could not be far from that shore. Then,
supposing they were not cannibals, yet they might kill me
(15:23):
as many Europeans who had fallen into their hands had
been served, even when they had been ten or twenty together.
Much more. I that was but one, and couldn't make
little or no defense. All these things I say, which
I ought to have considered well, and did come into
my thoughts afterwards, yet gave me no apprehensions at first,
(15:47):
and my head ran mightily upon the thought of getting
over to the shore. Now I wish for my boy Shuri,
and the longboat with the shoulder of mutton sail, with
which I had sailed above a thousand miles on the
coast of Africa. But this was in vain. Then I
(16:08):
thought I would go and look at our ship's boat, which,
as I have said, was blown up upon the shore
a great way in the storm when we first cast away.
She lay almost where she did at first, but not quite,
and was turned by the force of the waves and
the winds, almost bottom upward against a high ridge of
(16:29):
beechy rough sand, but no water about her. If I
had had hands to have refitted her, and to have
launched her into the water, the boat would have done
well enough. But and I might have gone back into
the Brazils with her easily enough. Yet I might have
(16:50):
foreseen that I could no more turn her and set
her upright upon her bottom than I could remove the island. However,
I went to the woods and cut levers and rollers,
and brought them to the boat, resolving to try what
I could do, suggesting to myself that if I could
turn her down, I might repair the damage she had received,
(17:16):
and she would be a very good boat, and I
might go to see in her very easily. I spared
no pains, indeed in this bit of fruitless toil, and
spent I think three or four weeks about it. At last,
finding it impossible to heave it up with my little strength,
I fell to digging away the sand to undermine it,
(17:38):
and so to make it fall down, setting pieces of
wood to thrust and guide it right in the fall.
But when I had done this, I was unable to
stir it up again, or to get under it, much
less to move it forwards towards the water. So I
was forced to give it over. And yet though I
(17:59):
gave the hopes of the boat, my desire to venture
over for the main increased, rather than decreased, as the
means for it seemed impossible. This at length put me,
upon thinking whether it was not possible to make myself
a canoe or periagua, such as the natives of those
(18:21):
climates make, even without tools, or as I might say,
without hands, of the trunk of a great tree. This
I not only thought possible, but easy, and pleased myself
extremely with the thoughts of making it, and with my
having much more convenience for it than any of the
(18:41):
Negroes or Indians. But not at all considering the particular
inconveniences which I lay under more than the Indians, and
that is, want of hands to move it when it
was made into the water, a difficulty much harder for
me to surmount than all the consequences of want of
(19:02):
tools could be to them. For what was it to
me if, when I had chosen a vast tree in
the woods, and with much trouble cut it down, if
I had been able with my tools to hew and
dub the outside with the proper shape of a boat,
and burn or cut out the inside to make it hollow,
(19:22):
so as to make a boat of it. If after
all this I must leave it just where I had
found it, and not be able to launch it into
the water, one would have thought I could not have
had the least reflection upon my mind of the circumstances
while I was making this boat. But I should have
(19:43):
immediately thought how I should get it into the sea.
But my thoughts were so intent upon my voyage over
the sea in it that I never once considered how
I should get it off the land. And it was really,
in its own nature more easy for me to guide
it over forty five miles of sea about forty five
(20:03):
fathoms of land where it lay, to set it afloat
in the water. I went to work upon this boat
the most like a fool that ever man did who
had any of the senses awake. I pleased myself with
the design, and without determining whether I was ever able
to undertake it not, but that the difficulty of launching
(20:27):
my boat came often into my head. But I put
a stop to my inquiries into this by this foolish
answer which I gave myself. Let me first make it.
I warrant I will find some way or other to
get it along when it is done. This was a
most preposterous method, but the eagerness of my fancy prevailed,
(20:52):
and to work I went. I found a cedar tree,
and I questioned much whether Solomon ever had such a
one for the building of the Temple of Jerusalem. It
was five feet ten inches diameter at the lower part
next the stump, and four feet eleven inches diameter at
the end of twenty two feet, after which it lessened
(21:15):
for a while and then parted into branches. It was
not without infinite labor that I felled the stream. I
was twenty days hacking and hewing at it. At the
bottom I was fourteen more getting the branches and limbs,
and the vast spreading head cut off, which I hacked
and hued through with axe and hatchet and inexpressible labor.
(21:41):
After this it cost me a month to shape it
and dub it to a proportion and to something like
the bottom of a boat, that it might swim upright
as it ought to. It cost me near three months
more to clear the inside and work it out so
as to make it an exact boat. This I did,
(22:04):
indeed without fire, by mere mallet and chisel, and by
the dint of hard labor, till I had brought it
to be a very handsome periagua, and big enough to
have carried six and twenty men, and consequently big enough
to have carried me and all my cargo. When I
(22:26):
had gone through this work, I was extremely delighted with it.
The boat was really much bigger than ever I saw
a canoe or periagua that was made of one tree
in my life many a weary stroke. It had cost,
you can be sure. And had I gotten it into
the water, I make no question, but I should have
(22:48):
begun the maddest voyage and the most unlikely to be
performed that ever was undertaken. But all my devices to
get it into the water failed me, though they cost
me infinite labor. Two It lay about one hundred yards
from the water, and not more. But the first inconvenience
(23:11):
was it was uphill towards the creek. Well. To take
away this discouragement, I resolved to dig into the surface
of the earth and so make a declivity. This I began,
and it cost me a prodigious deal of pains. But
who grudge pains who have their deliverance in view. But
(23:34):
when this was worked through and this difficulty managed, it
was still much the same. For I could no more
stir the canoe than I could the other boat. Then
I ventured the distance of ground, and resolved to cut
a dock or canal to bring the water up to
the canoe. Seeing I could not bring the canoe down
(23:57):
to the water well, I began this work. And when
I had begun to enter upon it and calculate how
deep it was to be dug, how broad how the
stuff was to be thrown out, I found that by
the number of hands I had been none but my own.
It must have been ten or twelve years before I
(24:19):
could have gone through with it, for the shore lay
so high that at the upper end it must have
been at least twenty feet deep, and so at length.
But with great reluctancy I gave this attempt over. Also
(24:39):
this grieved me heartily, and now I saw, though too late,
the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost,
and before we judge rightly of our own strength to
go through with it. In the middle of this work
I finished my fourth year in this place, and kept
my anniversary with this same devotion and with as much
(25:01):
comfort as ever before. For by a constant study and
serious application of the Word of God, and by the
assistance of His grace, I gained a different knowledge from
what I had before, I entertained different notions of things.
(25:22):
I looked now upon the world as a thing remote
which I had nothing to do with, no expectations from,
and indeed no desires about. In a word, I had
nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever likely
(25:42):
to have. So I thought it looked as we may
perhaps look upon it hereafter, that is, as a place
I had lived in, but was come out of it.
And well might I say, as Father Abraham to dives
between me and the is a great gulf fixed in
(26:08):
the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness
of the world. Here I had neither the lusts of
the flesh and the lusts of the eye, nor the
pride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I
had all that I was now capable of enjoying. I
was lord of the whole manner, or if it pleased,
(26:29):
I might call myself king or emperor over the whole
country which I had possession of. There were no rivals.
I had no competitor, none to dispute sovereignty or command me.
I might have raised shiploadings of corn, but I had
(26:50):
no use for it. So I let as little grow
as I thought enough for my occasion. I had tortoise
or turtle enough, But now and then one was as
much as I could put to any use. I had
timber enough to have built a fleet of ships, and
(27:11):
I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to
have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when
it had been built. But all I could make use
of was all that was valuable. I had enough to
eat and supply my wants. And what was all the
(27:32):
rest to me? If I killed more flesh than I
could eat, the dog must eat it, or vermin. If
I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must
be spoiled. The trees that I cut down were lying
to rot on the ground. I could make no more
use of them but for fuel, and that I had
(27:54):
no occasion for but to dress my food. In a word,
the nature and experience of things dictated to me upon
just reflection that all the good things of this world
are no farther good to us than they are for
(28:14):
our use, and that whatever we may heap up to
give others, we enjoyed just as much as we can
use and know more. The most covetous gripping miser in
the world would have been cured of the vice of
covetousness if he had been in my case. For I
(28:39):
possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with.
I had no room for desire, except it was of
things which I had not, and they were but trifles,
though indeed of great use to me. I had, as
I hinted before, a parcel of money, as well gold
(28:59):
as silver, about thirty six pounds sterling. Alas there the
sorry useless stuff lay, I had no more manner of
business for it, and often though with myself that I
would have given a handful of it for a gross
of tobacco pipes, or for a hand mill to grind
(29:21):
my corn. Nay, I would have given it all for
a sixpenny worth of turnip and carrot seed out of England,
or for a handful of peas and beans and a
bottle of ink. As it was, I had not the
least advantage by it or benefit from it. But there
(29:44):
it lay in a drawer and grew moldy with the
damp of the cave in the wet seasons. And if
I had had the drawer full of diamonds, it had
been the same case they had been of no manner
of value to me because of no use. Use I
had now brought my state of life to be much
(30:06):
easier in itself than it was at first, and much
easier to my mind as well as to my body.
I frequently sat down to meet with thankfulness and admired
the hands of God's providence which had thus spread my
table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon
(30:28):
the bright side of my condition and less upon the
dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than
what I wanted. And this gave me sometimes such secret
comforts that I cannot express them, and which I take
notice of here to put these discontented people in my
(30:51):
mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has
given them because they see and covet something that He
has not given them. All our discontents about what we
want appeared to me to spring from the want of
thankfulness for what we have. Another reflection was of great
(31:17):
use to me, and doubtless would be so to anyone
that would fall into such distress as mine was. And
this was to compare my present condition with what I
at first expected it would be, nay, with what it
would certainly have been if the good providence of God
had not wonderfully ordered the ship to be cast up
(31:38):
nearer to the shore, where I not only could come
at her, but could bring what I got out of
her to the shore for my relief and comfort, without
which I had wanted, for tools to work, weapons for defense,
and gunpowder and shot for getting my food. I spent
(32:00):
whole hours, I may say whole days, in representing to
myself in the most lively colors, how I would have
acted if I had got nothing out of the ship,
How I could not have so much as got any
food except fish and turtles, And that, as it was
(32:22):
long before I found any of them, I must have
perished first. That I should have lived if I had
not perished like a mere savage. That if I had
killed a goat or a fowl by any contrivance, I
had no way to flay or open it, or part
(32:44):
the flesh from the skin and the bowels, or to
cut it up, but must gnaw it with my teeth
and pull it with my claws like a beast. These
reflections made me very sensible of the goodness of Providence
to me, and very thankful of my present condition, with
(33:08):
all its hardships and misfortunes. And this part also I
cannot but recommend to the reflection of those who are
apt in their misery to say, is any affliction like mine?
Let them consider how much worse the cases of some
people are, and their case might have been, if Providence
(33:31):
had thought fit. I had another reflection which assisted me
also to comfort my mind with hopes, and this was
comparing my present situation with what I had deserved and
had therefore reason to expect from the hand of Providence.
I had lived a dreadful life, perfectly destitute of the
(33:55):
knowledge and fear of God. I had been well instructed
by Father and Mother. Neither had they been wanting to
me in their early endeavors, to infuse a religious awe
of God into my mind, a sense of my duty
in what the nature and end of my being required
of me. But alas falling early into the seafaring life,
(34:20):
which of all lives, is the most destitute of the
fear of God, though his terrors are always before them,
I say, falling early into the seafaring life and into
seafaring company, all that little sense of religion which I
had entertained, was laughed out of me by my messmates,
(34:42):
by a hardened despising of dangers and the views of death,
which grew habitual to me by my long absence from
all manner of opportunities to converse with anything but was
like myself, or to hear anything that was good or
tended towards it. So void was I of everything that
(35:07):
was good or the least sense of what I was
or was to be, that in the greatest deliverances I enjoyed,
such as my escape from Selie, my being taken up
by the Portuguese master of the ship, my being planted
so well in the Brazils, my receiving the cargo from England,
(35:30):
and the like. I never had once the words thank
God so much as on my mind or in my mouth,
nor in the greatest distress, had I so much as
a thought to pray to Him, or so much as
to say, Lord, have mercy upon me, nor to mention
(35:55):
the name of God. No, unless it was to swear
by and blasphem it. I had terrible reflections upon my
mind for many months, as I have already observed, on
account of my wicked and hardened life past, and when
(36:15):
I looked about me and considered what particular providences had
attended me since my coming into this place, and how
God had dealt bountifully with me, had not only punished
me less than my iniquity had deserved, but had so
plentifully provided for me. This gave me great hopes that
(36:39):
my repentance was accepted and that God had yet mercy
in store for me. With these reflections, I worked my
mind up not only to a resignation to the will
of God in the present disposition of my circumstances, but
even to a sincere thankfulness for my condition, and that I,
(37:04):
who was yet a living man, ought not to complain,
seeing I had not the due punishment of my sins,
that I enjoyed so many mercies which I had no
reason to have expected in that place, that I ought
never more to repine at my condition, but to rejoice
(37:27):
and to give daily thanks for that daily bread which
nothing but a crowd of wonders could have brought. That
I ought to consider I had been fed even by
a miracle even as great as that of feeding Elijah
by Ravens, nay, by a long series of miracles that
(37:50):
I could hardly have named a place in the uninhabitable
part of the world, where I could have been cast
more to my advantage, A place where as I had
no society, which must was my affliction. On one hand,
so I found no ravenous beasts, no furious wolves or
(38:13):
tigers to threaten my life, no venomous creatures or poisons
which I might feed on to my hurt, no savages
to murder and devour me. In a word, as my
life was a life of sorrow one way, so it
was a life of mercy another, And I wanted nothing
(38:38):
to make it a life of comfort, but to be
able to make my sense of God's goodness to me
and care over me in this condition be my daily consolation.
And after I did make a just improvement of these things,
I went away and was no more sad. I had
(39:03):
now been here so long that many things which I
had brought on shore for my help were either quite
gone or very much wasted and near spent. My ink,
as I observed, had been gone sometime, all but a
very little, which I eat out with water, a little
(39:23):
and a little, till it was so pale it scarce
left any appearance of black upon the paper. As long
as it lasted, I made use of it to minute
down the days of the month on which any remarkable
thing happened to me. And first, by casting up times past,
(39:45):
I remembered that there was a strange concurrence of days
in the various providences which befell me, and which if
I had been superstitiously inclined to observe days as fatal
or fortunate, I might have had reason to have looked
upon with a great deal of curiosity. First I had
(40:08):
observed that the same day that I broke away from
my father and friends and ran away to Hull in
order to go to sea, the same day afterwards I
was taken by the Sali man of war and made
a slave. And the same day of the year that
I escaped out of the wreck of that ship in
(40:28):
Yarmouth Roads. That same day year afterwards, I made my
escape from Slie in a boat. The same day of
the year I was born in that is the thirtieth
of September. That same day I had my life so
miraculously save twenty six years later, when I was cast
(40:52):
on shore in this island, so that my wicked life
and my solitary life began both on a day. The
next thing to my ink being wasted was that of
my bread, I mean the biscuit which I brought out
of the ship. This I had husbanded to the last degree,
(41:14):
allowing myself but one cake of bread a day for
above a year. And yet I was quite without bread
for near a year before I got any corn of
my own, and great reason I had to be thankful
that I had any at all the getting Yet, being
as has been already observed, next too miraculous, my clothes
(41:39):
too began to decay. As to linen, I had found
none a good while, except some checkered shirts, which I
found in the chests of the other seamen, and which
I carefully preserved, because many times I could bear no
other clothes on but a shirt. And it was a
(42:00):
very great help to me that I had, among all
the men's clothes of the ship, almost three dozen of shirts.
There were also, indeed several thick watchcoats of the semens
which were left, but they were too hot to wear.
And though it was true that the weather was so
(42:21):
violently hot that there was no need of clothes, yet
I could not go quite naked. No, though I had
been inclined to it, which I was not, nor could
I abide the thought of it though I was alone.
The reason why I could not go naked was I
could not bear the heat of the sun so well
(42:44):
when quite naked, as with some clothes on, Nay, the
very heat blistered my skin, whereas with a shirt on
the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the
shirt was too fold cooler than with it. No more
could I ever bring myself to go out in the
(43:04):
heat of the sun without a cap on my head
or a hat. The heat of the sun, beating with
such violence as it does in that place, would give
me the headache presently by darting so directly on my
head without a cap or hat on, so that I
could not bear it, whereas if I put on my
(43:26):
hat it would presently go away. Upon these views, I
began to consider about putting the few rags I had,
which I called clothes into some order. I had worn
out all the waistcoats I had, and my business was
now to try if I could make jackets out of
(43:49):
the great watchcoats which I had of me, but with
such other materials as I had. I set to working tailoring,
or rather indeed botching, for I made most piteous work
of it. However, I made shift to make two or
three new waistcoats, which I hoped would serve me a
(44:13):
great while. As for breeches and drawers, I made but
a very sorry shift. Indeed, till afterwards I have mentioned
that I saved the skins of all the creatures that
I killed, I mean four footed ones, and I hung
them up, stretched out with sticks in the sun, by
(44:34):
which means some of them were so dry and so
hard that they were fit for little, but others were
very useful. The first thing I made of these was
a great cap for my head, with the hair on
the outside to shoot off the rain. And this I
performed so well that after I made me a suit
(44:55):
of clothes, wholly of these skins, that is to say,
a waistcoat and breeches opened up the knees and both loose,
for they were rather wanting to keep me cool than
to keep me warm. I must not admit to acknowledge
that they were wretchedly made, for if I was a
bad carpenter, I was a worse tailor. However, they were
(45:20):
such as I made very good shift with, and when
I was out, if it happened to rain the hair
of my waistcoat and cap, being outermost, I was kept
very dry. After this, I spent a great deal of
time and pains to make an umbrella. I was indeed
in great want of one, and had a great mind
(45:43):
to make one. I had seen them made in the Brazils,
where they are very useful in the great heats there,
and I felt the heats every jot is great here
and greater two being near the equinox. Besides, as I
was obliged to be much abroad, it was the most
useful thing to me, as well for the rains as
(46:04):
the heats. I took a world of pains with it,
and was a great while before I could make anything
likely to hold. Nay, after I had thought I had
hit my way, I spoiled two or three before I
made one to my mind. But at last I made
one that answered indifferently well. The main difficulty I found
(46:29):
was to make it let down. I can make it spread,
but if I did not let down two and draw
in it was not portable for me anyway, but just
over my head, which would not do. However, at last,
as I said, I made one to answer and covered
it with skins the hair upwards, so that it cast
(46:53):
off the rain like a penthouse, and kept off the
sun so effectually that I could walk how in the
hottest of the weather, with greater advantage than I could
before in the coolest, and when I had no need
of it, could close it and carry it under my arm.
(47:14):
Thus I lived mighty comfortably, my mind being entirely composed.
By resigning itself to the will of God, and throwing
myself wholly under the disposal of His providence. This made
my life better than sociable. For when I began to
regret the want of conversation, I would ask myself whether
(47:39):
thus conversing mutually with my own thoughts, and as I
hope I may say, with even God himself by ejaculations,
was not better than the most enjoyment of human society
in the world. End of Chapter nine.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!